The crust is light, airy, crisp, and usually pleasantly salty. There's a near-perfect cheese-to-sauce ratio. Unlike a lot of Jersey boardwalk pizza, there's no spiral pattern to the sauce here. And the cheese Sam's uses is simply mozzarella. It's pretty much a standard NYC-style slice.

You always get a slice hot from the oven because the place is always packed (see above) and slice-pie turnover is fierce.

I can't recall a time I ever stopped at a single slice.

We returned recently over Memorial Day weekend and of course made a beeline there our first night in town. Everything was pretty much spot on, though the crust was a little bland and underdone this time. Given the number of consistently superb Sam's slices I've had in the past, I'm willing to chalk it up to start-of-the-season kinks.

New to me this year is that I finally tried the white broccoli slice, which seems to be a thing here (and at rival Mack's down the boards). The crust on this pie was closer to the Sam's I know—well-done and crisp if still a little less flavorful than usual.

This is the Jersey Shore, with strong Pennsylvania influences, so of course you have to order a birch beer with your slice. Or slices.

Pro tip 1: Skip the long dinnertime line at the door by offering to eat at the counter. There are almost always stools available. And you get to watch the stunning efficiency of the Sam's team at work (above).

Adam Kuban is the proprietor of the pop-up Margot's Pizza, which serves bar-style pizza. But you may also know him as the founder of Slice (RIP, 2003–2014) where he has written thousands of blog posts about pizza. He also created A Hamburger Today and served as Serious Eats's founding editor (2006–2010) after having sold those sites to SE.

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